MaxDiff (Maximum Difference Scaling) is a survey-based research technique used in marketing to measure preferences or the relative importance of various items (such as product features, benefits, or messages).
Why Use MaxDiff?
MaxDiff helps answer questions like:
- “Which product features should we focus on?”
- “Which marketing messages are most compelling?”
- “What benefits drive purchase decisions?”
By identifying what users value most (and least), product teams can:
- Allocate resources more effectively
- Build roadmaps based on customer-driven priorities
Marketing teams use MaxDiff to evaluate:
- Value propositions
- Ad copy
- Taglines or calls-to-action
This helps them focus communication on what resonates most with the audience.
With advanced MaxDiff (using Latent Class Analysis or Hierarchical Bayes), companies can:
- Group customers into segments with different priorities
- Tailor messaging, features, or pricing to each segment
Unlike rating everything a “10 out of 10,” MaxDiff forces respondents to choose, which:
- Mimics real-world decisions (e.g., choosing between trade-offs)
- Reduces bias and scale-use distortion
- Delivers cleaner, more discriminating data
MaxDiff shows what people value, which indirectly informs:
- Willingness to pay
- How to bundle features or services
- What trade-offs customers accept at different price points
Compared to rating scales (like Likert), MaxDiff:
- Reduces bias (e.g., scale-use bias)
- Forces trade-offs, mimicking real-world decision-making
- Provides ratio-level measurement—you can say “Item A is twice as preferred as Item B”
Business Case Study using MaxDiff
Business Example:
Your organization is launching a new prescription drug, and you want to understand which features patients care about most.
You have the following 8 features:
- Side-effects
- Dosage Frequency
- Administration
- Ingredients
- Affordable price
- Taste
- Packaging
Respondents are shown a set of items (usually 4–5 per set) and are asked to choose:
- The most important (or appealing) item
- The least important (or appealing) item
This process is repeated across multiple sets, with the items rotating, so every item appears several times in different combinations.
Choose the Most Important and Least Important in each.
Set | Option A | Option B | Option C | Option D |
1 | Side-effects | Dosage Frequency | Affordable price | Taste |
2 | Taste | Side-effects | Dosage Frequency | Packaging |
3 | Packaging | Affordable price | Side-effects | Dosage Frequency |